Autonomous robots can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance. Many kinds of robots are autonomous to some degree. Different robots can be autonomous in different ways. An autonomous coverage robot can traverse a work surface without continuous human guidance to perform one or more tasks. In the field of home, office and/or consumer-oriented robotics, mobile robots that perform household functions such as removing debris from a surface (e.g., vacuum cleaning and floor washing) have been widely adopted.